


Cold Water (the Steam Pressure remix)

by ashkatom



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-15
Updated: 2013-03-15
Packaged: 2017-12-05 09:27:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/721499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashkatom/pseuds/ashkatom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After going God Tier, Dirk is taken by the Condesce. Roxy, Jane, and Jake have to get him back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cold Water (the Steam Pressure remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [messageredacted](https://archiveofourown.org/users/messageredacted/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Cold Water](https://archiveofourown.org/works/375371) by [messageredacted](https://archiveofourown.org/users/messageredacted/pseuds/messageredacted). 



> Lyrics from [Derse Dreamers](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9SQjvPLAWs), by Iamurri and horizon.

\--

_Somewhere, there's a world we were meant to create_  
 _but it seems that we are not stronger than fate_  
 _you look my way,_  
 _what can I say?_  
 _I wish I believed things will be okay_

\--

TT: Rox, you awake?  
TT: Dirk’s been taken by the drones.  
TG: fuckity fuck fuck fuck  
TG: lemme jsut get jake n janey  
TG: were on our way  
TT has gone offline!  
TG: ar?

\--

You need a drink.

Okay, so you just shot yourself through the heart and rose again and all your addictions should be gone, whatever. You’re on Jane’s planet, clustered in a tight circle around your laptop. Waiting to hear about Dirk. Because there’s been no word.

“They’d hardly kidnap him if they weren’t intent on using him,” Jane says, literally wringing her hands. Janey’s a girl who needs to keep her hands busy the way you need a martini. “They can’t kill him unless he makes some sort of foolish last stand, after all.”

You don’t even know where they _took_ him, though you don’t think he’s on Derse.

“Er, Jane, really...” Jake says, and trails off under the force of her glare. “I just don’t think we need to keep yammering on as we wait, it’s an upsetting topic!”

Your laptop screen goes dark. You fidget with the touchpad to bring it back up. You know the Condesce knows your handle, you and Dirk’s both. She wasn’t able to find you on Earth, but that doesn’t mean she didn’t know you. Probably had a blinged-up dossier on both of you on her nightstand.

You shuffle through your sylladex. No booze. You were gonna do things _right_ , this time around.

\--

TT: Sorry about that. Technical difficulties.  
TG: omg ar srsly  
TG: whatevs  
TG: wheres dirk  
TT: The Battleship Condescension is on his planet.  
TT: I think it’s a safe bet, but it could be a decoy.   
TT: We should wait to make sure he’s there before we go charging in.  
TG: but he needs us  
TT: And we’ll be there when we can best support him.  
TT: It’s been two hours, Rox. I don’t think Dirk will have broken yet.  
TG: as soon as we kno  
TG: im goin  
TT: That’s fair.

\--

AR is relegated to a window in the corner of your screen, although he’s stopped saying anything as he sends out questioning probes into the security of the Battleship Condescension. Then your Pesterchum starts flashing with a message from an unknown person.

It’s a link. Just an IP, a bunch of numbers pointing to a server. Guess you don’t rate a domain name.

TT: Mind if I check that?  
TG: go 4 it

Jane and Jake stare over your shoulders as you wait. You want to push them away and hide behind them at the same time.

TT: Rox. You don’t want to see this.

Jane’s hands tighten around your shoulder. Jake tries to reach for the keyboard balanced across your knees, but you bat him away before he can say anything.

“Roxy!” he protests.

“You’re not the only one who’s worried, okay?” you snap back. He has the decency to look ashamed once he remembers that he’s not the only person in the universe.

“I don’t think I want to see this,” Jane says, her voice barely coming out. You reach up and squeeze her hand before talking to AR again.

TG: will it blow up my lappy  
TT: No, but...  
TT: It’s not good. They’re using him as bait, which means that they’re figuring out what will make you come to him.  
TG: thx ar

You click the link. Jane walks off a few paces, leaving Jake to crowd in closer. Sometimes you really wanna punch the guy, tbh.

The camera’s obviously a surveillance model, from the angle and the grainyness. The running timestamp at the bottom is in Alternian, and after doing some mental math you realise that you’re looking at a live stream. The lense is a little cloudy, and then you realise it’s from salt water.

The room is bare. Stainless steel walls. You can see the bottom of a sealed door right at the top of a frame, which means there’s probably an airlock system. Taking up the rest of the frame is a large - glass? plastic? case, and inside that...

Inside that is Dirk. He’s in his god tier pyjamas which look _awful_ , you can’t help but note. The glass case is full of water too, you think. It’s hard to tell, but his hair is floaty. His pyjamas too. If Condesce is hoping that keeping him trapped will upset him, you don’t think she knows him very well. You grew up with the carapaces. Dirk grew up in a tiny apartment in the middle of nowhere with shitty movies and puppets for friends.

You still can’t resist reaching out and touching the screen, the way you used to do sometimes when you videocalled each other. The two of you don’t have anyone else.

Jake’s lips thin out and he goes stomping off. “That _addled old witch_ ,” he says, with more venom than you thought he could muster. 

For a while, when you and AR had lost track of Dirk, you’d hoped he’d fought free of the drones somehow and was laying low to avoid being captured again. Even if he does seem unharmed now, you feel numb with the realisation that someone has actually managed to capture him.

“Turn up the volume,” Jane says suddenly as she steps closer to you.  It takes you a moment before you fumble for the volume up button and hammer it. There’s a faint, rhythmic hum that you recognise.  

“Engines,” you say.

“The Battleship,” Jane says, her hands curling into fists, nails digging into her palms. Maybe she thinks it should be hers.

Dirk starts tapping on the glass in a rhythm that doesn’t have enough variance to be a code, and you draw your hand away from the screen. He’s gonna be okay. He’s fine, being in his own head for a while. Now you gotta figure out how to storm the Battleship Condescension.

\--

You didn’t count on them not taking care of him.

TT: I’m blanking the screen.  
TG: dont u fuckin dare

Dirk tosses in the water, clawing at his own skin. Before AR can cover it, he shoves his respirator aside and opens his mouth

and you claw at the screen once you realise what he’s doing

but it’s too late and you’ve been distracted by trying to get around patrols and he dies right in front of you and a million miles away.

Jake and Jane have to hold you back.

\--

He comes back. You don’t move an inch until he does, your eyes locked on the screen until his open. Dirk is hard to read unless you’re used to him, and oh, you’re used to him.

You think he’s disappointed. 

He closes his eyes and the sound cuts off. Then _she_ comes into the picture, and suddenly all the sound around you, Jake and Jane murmuring plans and sacrifices to each other, cuts off too.

It’s been two days and you can’t take it any more. He’s a god. He’s still human, and he’s counting on you. You tear yourself away from the stream and stand up.

“Roxy...” Jane says.

“I’m goin’.” you say. You’re not exactly the best at dealing with important situations and you want to run away, but it’s _Dirk_ in there and you can’t leave him. The next best thing you can do is run away with him. 

“Well, we’ve hardly been able to think of a better plan,” Jake says, still grim. “I do hope you won’t object to us at least providing some operative cover for you.”

You force yourself to crack a smile and ruffle his hair. “Make you miss out on a chance for some totes rad scuffles and fisticuffs? What kind of friend would I even be?”

\--

You take your Appearifle and a rifle that you haven’t named yet that shoots a tight, hot beam that punches through anything. Jane has a giant fork she made with Skaia on the end of it, and Jake has an innumerable amount of pistols. None of you have any idea what to do with your God tiers, but this probably counts as heroic anyway.

You hate being heroic. You want to curl up in your Carapacian apartment and listen to Dirk on Pesterchum while you watch a movie his Bro made. Not this.

You all know the paths through the gates by the backs of your hands by now. The Battleship Condescension is right outside the gate on Dirk’s planet, an open invitation, a challenge, and a threat.

“Wait.” Jane catches both you and Jake in the chest by spreading her arms, keeping you from charging in. “I _know_ , Roxy,” she says in defense to your look. “But this is the Condesce. We still have to be cautious and scope out the situation!”

“They can probs see us through the cameras,” you point out.

As if to prove you right, speakers screech to life. Dirk’s voice, hoarse with use, rings out across the rubble of ruined towers.

“I want _water_ ,” he screams. “Give me water!”

You feel tears soak the eyeholes of your mask. Jane has a hand clamped over her mouth, and Jake’s knuckles go white against the handgrips of his pistols.

Jane’s moustache goes off, and she refocuses in a haze. “It’s his Auto-Responder,” she says, after clearing her throat. “It - he says to find somewhere to hide, because this tactic is meant to draw us into their territory and ambush us. He says he has a camera feed that show the guards waiting.” She pauses. “It’s true,” she says in a colourless voice.

Dirk’s screams follow the three of you as you run for your lives. They’re replaced by the sounds of him trying to break himself against the walls of the aquarium, and then nothing.

You hope he’s still breathing.

\--

You pull out your laptop and check the stream as soon as you’re hidden away, Jake and Jane crowding behind you. They could watch on their own computers, but you don’t think any of them want to be alone.

_Like Dirk_ , your brain adds, and you reflexively reach for a drink that isn’t there.

He’s alive still, the respirator on, his chest rising and falling. There’s blood in the water, though, and as you watch he drifts listlessly. You hope he’s locked away in a corner of his brain, the way he gets when he’s building things.

You see the bottom of the door open. Grey hands pull the lid off the case Dirk is suspended in and yank him roughly out.

You’re not surprised when you receive a message with another link.

TT: Checking.  
TG: ar what r they doin 2 him  
TT: Oh. Fuck, Rox, don’t go there.  
TG: ar!  
TT: Look, Condesce has him. Personally.  
TT: If you click that, there’s a 99.9% chance that all of you will flip your shit and run in to get captured.  
TT: I’m not letting you watch this.

Jake rests a hand on your shoulder. “He’s right. Dirk needs us at our best, not wrecked because we played into the malarkey of his captor.”

“Why weren’t we there?” You slam the laptop shut and toss it to the ground. AR could lock you out and you could get around that but you don’t _care_ any more, you just want to go get Dirk. This was supposed to be a game, not a murder-torture festival. Dying yourself was bad enough. 

“I don’t know.” Jane wraps her arms around herself, even though Dirk’s planet is pretty warm. “I keep thinking that if I’d been a little faster in doing the deed, I could have been there.”

You wrap your arms around Jane and squeeze, and while you’re hugging her Jake hugs you, and you spend the night that way. None of you sleep, but then again, you don’t think Dirk is either. The four of you are used to thinking of each other over distances, but this is the furthest you’ve felt from him in a long time.

You hope he knows you’re coming.

\--

In the morning you check to make sure your Appearifle works by appearifying six very confused trolls into a hastily-constructed-by-Jake trap. Jane, wearing her tiaratop and holding a trident, hisses at them in fairly bad Alternian.

“You _will_ tell us how to reach our friend,” is what she says.

Confronted by the Condesce’s Heiress, they do.

\--

You go your own way as Jake and Jane begin to carry out their own distractions. You have enough uranium left in your Appearifle to cause some real havoc, and the more you mess up their plans before you go in, the better.

You’ve been waiting for this since Dirk was taken.

You use the Appearifle to rip away panels from the Battleship. It’s loud and destructive and you feel your lips curving up as you tear it to pieces. Even locked away in water and glass, Dirk should hear this. It’s not enough to pay back what they’ve done to him, but it’s a start.

You lose yourself in appearifying panels and running before appearifying the next one until your lungs burn and your legs ache. By the time you’ve looped around, at least an hour has passed. You don’t want them getting too complacent before you storm the joint.

Your other rifle punches through what’s left of the ship’s hull easily, although the edge of the hole singes you as you dive through. You slap a glass lense over your eye now that it won’t interfere with your aim and AR’s text shows up.

TT: Next left. Then an airlock.  
TT: You sure this thing is waterproof?  
TG: lol no just thought id lose my eye  
TT: Great to have you back.

There are two trolls standing outside the airlock, and you take a running leap at the first and swing the butt of your rifle down. She’s out for the count for the time being, and the second one starts running down the hall. You shoot her leg off at the knee before she can call in reinforcements.

TT: You’ve got the lock?  
TG: easy as pi

The keypad lock gives in to you once you smash the cover off and connect the appropriate wires. The airlock cycles as you hold your breath, and you grab a mask from by the door, strapping it on as you kick into the room.

Your distractions must have been more distracting than you realised, because the room’s empty except for Dirk in his glass tank. You bang on the side of the case and his eyes snap open, confusion quickly chased away by recognition.

He waves at you.

It’s then you notice that his hands are free, and he has no respirator. You look at him, in pristine condition with his God tier pyjamas wet, but otherwise spotless and in one piece, and a sick feeling settles in you.

He’d keep coming back, if it wasn’t just or heroic. 

You pull out your rifle and swim up to shoot the lid, thanking luck that you have a rifle that works underwater as well as it does on dry land. When you pull the trigger, the water around you boils and obscures your vision. When the bubbles clear away, the lid is unchanged.

Your heart sinks. Your breath is ragged through the respirator, and with every second that ticks away you wonder how much longer Dirk can hold his breath.

You swim down and wave frantically until he tucks himself into a corner of the tank, as much as he can. Your next blast melts a hole in the lid big enough for your hand and you shove the mask through to Dirk. Red blisters that you can’t feel now but will feel later cover your forearm, but it’s worth it when you feel Dirk’s fingers brush yours as he takes the mask and presses it to his own face.

Working quickly, you make the hole bigger and pull him through. He follows you to the airlock, one hand clamped firmly over the respirator, and you make short work of the lock on this side before tugging him through. You grip his free hand with your unburned one hard enough to lose feeling as the water drains away.

He falls with the water and you follow him down, your arms wrapped around him. You don’t care about all the stupid things you’ve argued about since the game began, and you don’t care that you’re in the middle of the Battleship Condescension and they’ll remember Dirk soon. He wheezes into the respirator and you have to pry it away, murmuring in a comforting lilt as you loosen his grip. “Hey, Dirk, it’s okay,” you croon. “We’ve got you, it’s okay, you can breathe now.” You shut yourself out to try to not listen to what you’re saying, to not acknowledge what the past few days have been filled with. “Breathe for me, Di-Stri, I know you know how.”

“Sorry,” he mutters. 

You don’t let go of him. “No need for sorry. C’mon, we gotta go join the others.”

When his grip on your shirt loosens, you lead him back out into the world.

\--

The four of you get as far away as you can and go to Jane’s planet, which is the driest, easiest-to-hide-in planet of the four. Jane and Jake, despite themselves, finally fall asleep when you’re deep in a crypt. You sit by the entrance with your rifle across your knees and make sure that nobody will ever take one of you again.

Dirk comes and sits by you in silence. You hold out a hand in offer and he takes it.

“I didn’t think you were going to come,” he says, and that underscores the whole experience so horribly that all you can do is sit there like a dope and hold his hand. “That’s what I was sorry for.”

You reach up and scrub your dumb traitor eyes. “We were comin’ from minute one, Di-Stri. I’m sorry we weren’t sooner.”

“I think we’re all sorry.” He tilts until his head is resting on top of yours. “I could go for a goddamn drink.”

You hiccup through your crying and start to laugh. “I don’t have any,” you explain. “I’m sober.”

“You picked the worst time for it,” Dirk says. At first you’re worried he’s actually angry, but when you look up at him his lips are subtly curved into his ironic coolkid version of a smile. He’s tired, and he’s beaten-up, but he’s home. 

You start laughing again, and to your utter relief, so does he.

\--

_if we're to make it through_  
 _I'm just as terrified as you_  
 _but surely there's something to look forward to_

\--


End file.
